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Abstract
The Yeoval porphyry copper prospect lies in a complex of dioritic rocks which form part of the eastern margin of the Yeoval Batholith in central‐western New South Wales. Rocks of the batholith are mainly granite and adamellite whose age is about 370 m.y. The diorite complex, (411 m.y.) is composed of rocks ranging from granodiorite to gabbro and pyroxenite.
Hydrothermal alteration of granodiorite in the Yeoval Mine area, 3.5 km north of Yeoval, is associated with disseminated and stockwork‐veinlet copper‐sulphide‐bearing zones. Alteration assemblages are similar to those described from some disseminated or porphyry copper/molybdenum deposits of southwestern USA.
The ubiquity of potassic zones in veinlet alteration envelopes and the poor development of sericitic and argillic zones suggest that the Yeoval prospect formed at or below the level of the Ajo deposit, Arizona, and the Los Loros deposit, Chile, which formed some 5 km below surface near the base of the ‘porphyry system’.
High Rb and Ba contents in the Yeoval diorites and their associated andesitic volcanics, and the presence of garnet‐bearing rhyodacite of similar age, imply that the Yeoval area was part of an Andean type of continental margin in the middle Palaeozoic.